Screamtime

Sometimes when you expect the worst....you get a nice, mild surprise. Something may turn out to not be as bad as you thought it would be. Such is the case with Screamtime. The video box depicts the film as being real cheap and bad, and the opening shots and credits do little to dismiss that impression. Two guys steal three videos and run to some girl's house. Almost instantaneously we are given a view of her naked breasts. Well, at this point you think you have a pretty good idea where the film is going. Then the punk kid/thief sticks a video in the VCR and we start to watch a story about an English puppeteer who lives a life with a wife and stepson who don't love or understand him. They want him to burn his puppets, give up what he has spent his life doing, and move to Canada. The story is nothing like the wrap-around story. It is well-directed, has some decent performances, and even some thoughtful story-telling. The script is not great, but the story is entertaining. Robin Bailey does a real nice job as Jack, the man behind an evil looking Punch and Judy. The story ends, having generated some pretty good jumps and at least some suspense. Back to the the story of the thieves. The footage of them seems like it was shot by some high school amateurs. Then another story. The second story out-classes the rest for it tells a story of a woman and man who just moved into a big house. She begins to see things. The pacing is a bit slow, but the climax is more than ample reward for that small discrepancy. I really was quite surprised by the ending of the story and very pleased with the whole story overall. It was extremely well-executed in terms of direction and performance. Back to the stupid clods again and then on to the third story about a young man and his buddies out to rob two old women who say they live amongst fairies and gnomes. The story is pretty good and the two old ladies are wonderfully played by Dora Bryan and Jean Anderson. The special effects in this story are somewhat lacking. The third story ends and then we see how the wrap-around story ends. It is a ridiculous ending to a whole ridiculous scheme. The film may have faired better if they had someone just host the three stories and introduce them like in Thriller. It certainly would not have hurt. At any rate don't pass this one up if you like some good old British anthology horror story-telling. The stories are very interesting. I can only think that somehow someone made these three stories in England and could not find a "real" distributor and ended up selling them to some fifth-rate film operation.

"Do you believe in fairies?" the elderly woman in the television set queried. If you now what's good for you, Jeff (or Jeff-ette), you will after taking a gander at this videotape-within-a-videotape-within-a-videotape-within-a-videotape (unless you own the DVD edition.) The movie does not star so much as feature a cast of actors put to the test as they watch video after video after video, and we watch them watching. Then they die (9 out of 10 viewers of Screamtime did not die after watching it, and those who did died of natural causes.) The phrase, "you get what you pay for," is given new meaning as two hooligans steal three videos (thus not "paying for" them), and are then murdered by them, fortunately after viewing them all the way through. These hepcats probably weren't even kind enough to rewind. At least there were no late charges, just late patrons.

As in dead!!!

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Screamtime; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.75 Direction: 0.75 Pace: 0.75 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.00

TOTAL: 4.50 out of 10.00

I do love a good horror compilation - Sadly, Screamtime is not one of them. And the reason for the movie's downfall would be the stories and the direction.

The first story, "That's The Way You Do It," offered the best opportunity to give the audience a good scare and a nasty twist or two. However, writer and director Michael Armstrong opted for the all-too-commonplace dark thriller route. However, what he does splendidly is to build the image of a dysfunctional family. A single mother moves in with an older man who makes his living by performing Punch and Judy shows on the Brighton seafront. Into this new relationship, she drags her angry and bullish son. Suffering from idolism where his father is concerned, he sees the new bloke as a wimp and a freak. The guy plays with dolls for a living, after all. He makes it his job to bully and break the puppeteer, even if it means destroying the man's livelihood. Armstrong doesn't go for the shock factor in the writing, though he and Stanley Long don't do too badly putting it into the filming. Deducing the outcome of this tale was easy, especially if you've read or watched a few dark thrillers and horror shorts.

The second story, "Dream House," is the best. Here we watch as the wife and mother of a family is slowly driven insane by the strange apparitions within the family's new home. It isn't until the final segment that we realise the truth behind her supernatural events. It's this reveal that slid a sliver of ice down my spine. The one letdown of this story is that it's woefully short. If Armstrong had included similar strong characterisations as he showed in the first tale, this little piece would have been near perfect.

Then we get to the strangest and weakest story of the picture, "Do You Believe In Fairies?" A guy looking to make a quick quid takes a job in the home of two old dears. The rumours about the town have this pair of women distrusting banks and keeping their money, jewels, and valuables under lock and key somewhere in the house. Taking a job as caretaker-come-gardener gives him the ideal opportunity to search out the treasure. Unbeknown to him, the two old dears are not what they appear to be, and they have ulterior motives for hiring him. Sadly, Armstrong has opted for a more humourous tongue-in-cheek approach for this short. It works where the ladies are involved, but it makes the rest of the story a tad too light and jovial. I would have used the women's upbeat personas to add extra darkness to the narrative; therefore, the reveal would have been more chilling and not, Oh Yeah - Of Course!

The directors are not the best filmmakers I've seen. On the whole, they tend to use a standard approach. There's not much in the way of eye candy or captivating cinematography, though both attempt to draw the audience's attention to the pivotal scenes by utilising intriguing and varied camera angles or employing dark shadows. Sadly, it feels contrived, and along with the below-par tales of terror, it actually takes power away from the stories.

The best thing about this collection is the cast. We have some steady regulars of the British stage and screen. Unfortunately, they are not enough to lift this movie above its averageness. Jonathon Morris, who later went to star in Bread, shows what a talent he was as the bully-boy of the first tale. Dora Bryan and Jean Anderson are perfect as the old dears. But David Van Day, who plays their caretaker, displays the reason he left acting for singing and Bucks Fizz.

Screamtime is your one-watch movie - but it shouldn't be too high on your watch list. In fact, it should be quite near the bottom, just above "Watching Paint Dry." It was okay to pass a wet afternoon, but I can't see myself watching it again.

Now leave Punch and Judy alone, and put down that truncheon. You need to check out my Absolute Horror and Obsidian Dream lists to see where I ranked Screamtime.

Take Care & Stay Well.

This was a decent horror anthology movie. Two New Yorkers steal some videos from a video store, and take them to a female friend's apartment to watch.

In the first one, an old man loves doing Punch & Judy shows for kids, and takes meticulous care of his puppets at home. His wife is fed up with it; they don't make enough money, and she wants him to burn them and move with his stepson to Canada for reliable work. We then see his family being attacked by a wooden board. Has Punch come to life, or has the old man gone nuts? This one wasn't all that good, but it wasn't terrible.

In the second one, a couple move into a house their father was unable to sell. The wife sees a boy bicycling in the yard that no one else notices. She hears noises, and sees blood in the bathtub, then on a knife in the kitchen, then on the bannister. She starts seeing other people in the house, and then starts seeing those people bloody or dead. This one was quite a bit better.

In the last segment, a young man races motorcycles, and works at a clothing store. He needs more money, which his boss offers to loan him. He takes a job gardening for a pair of old ladies to make the money he needs to pay his boss back. They're quite eccentric, believing in fairies and gnomes, and a pact their 16th century ancestor had with the fairies to help conceal her affairs from her husband. The young man discovers the old ladies have a chest full of money, and he decides to rob them with the help of his younger brother and a friend. This one was pretty good too.

Finally, the wraparound segment brings everything together.

Whilst far from perfect, this is a very good anthology of horror stories.

There is very little gore, but the stories build up a good atmosphere, and the acting is always of at least an acceptable level, and in the cases of Robin Bailey,Jean Anderson and Dora Bryan, it is actually quite excellent.

In the middle story involving people moving into a house, I actually felt quite creeped out, something that hasn't happened for years to me.

I would love to know the story as to how three short English tales ended up juxtaposed with the wrap around story of thieves stealing the tapes from a store, but whatever, it doesn't detract from the stories themselves.

The copy I have seen has washed out colours which somehow added to the bleakness, and this is shot on film it would appear, doesn't look cheap and nasty at all.

If you are a fan of brit horror, you must see this it's definitely a bit of a lost gem as far as I'm concerned.